


Number Thirteen

by damozel



Category: Bluebeard - All Media Types, La Barbe bleue | Bluebeard - Charles Perrault
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorianish, Case Fic, Detectives, Diary/Journal, Epistolary, Historical Inaccuracy, Multi, Once Upon A Fic 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damozel/pseuds/damozel
Summary: "You may of course wonder what I'm doing here, why I would choose to place my life in peril for the most slender of rewards. Believe me when I say that those same questions haunt my thoughts still."Bluebeard's latest bride has an ulterior motive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZeldaQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeldaQueen/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diary of Miss Eveline Pitt.

Bluebeard Mansion, the first night  
(I have no clock, but the sky is at its very blackest point)

You may of course wonder what I'm doing here, why I would choose to place my life in peril for the most slender of rewards. Believe me when I say that those same questions haunt my thoughts still.

I’ve always fancied that I had something of the Lady Detective in me, the secret soul of an adventurer trapped inside my somewhat ungainly frame. So my ears burned when I heard of Lord Bluebeard; my beaky nose twitched each time one of the ladies in Mother's club mentioned his name. As they tittered over their fine bone china cups, the chatter always followed the same sort of a pattern: 'Did you hear that Lord BB married another?', 'ONE THIRD of his age this time, they say!', 'That girl doesn’t have an ounce of sense in her pretty little head, nor a mother to watch over her', 'He’ll make a widower of himself again by the end of the year, mark my words!'.

And so, time and again, it came to pass. The latest casualty was Cynthia-Jayne Fox, otherwise known as Lady Bluebeard. She died on the seventeenth day of September, and, according to Lady Bracebox, her family never even got to see her body.

In my younger years, Lady Bracebox and the rest of Mother's ladies turned the full force of their gossip on me. I heard all about the terribly dashing Lord Esplendo and the frightfully erudite Sir Edmund Firstwit. Joachim Harte was not too bad looking, or so they would have had me believe. The important thing to remember, and this they couldn't stress firmly enough, was that a girl like me couldn't afford to be too choosy about the man who she would spend the rest her life with. A husband is a husband after all.

When I grew a little older and stouter, and when my curves began to droop in the wrong direction, they discretely let the questions drop, abandoning the ship due to lack of hope, so to speak. Perhaps it was simply boredom that led them to fixate on Bluebeard so. Nevertheless, it was from them that I put together this grim, mysterious tale, slowly mastering the detective's art of piecing together the scattered clues.

I suspect that there have been twelve girls in total. Twelve young souls who left their homes as innocents before being consigned, for all eternity, to a wooden box in the ground. To learn of their fate and bring the monster responsible to justice will be the first great investigation of my life.

At least, that is how my thinking ran back in the safe confines of my girlhood bedchamber. Now, as I lie alone in this strange place, my knees drawn up to my chest as I struggle to write in the failing light, I fear that this first investigation will also be my last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newspaper cutting from the April edition of _Ladies' Bits_ , 'Positions Vacant and Services Offered'.

**BRIDE WANTED**

GENTLEMAN of considerable wealth, property and influence seeks a lover and helpmeet to be his companion for a lifetime. No dowry is required, but wit, intellect and charm are essential, as is a strong constitution and a sense of adventure. Interested parties should apply to A.C. c/o The Post Office, Tilsbury Cross, Blethenshire. Please include a photograph or likeness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diary of Miss Eveline Pitt, handwriting increasingly illegible.

The first night, later on

I could not believe that he could be so brazen as to advertise.

My hands trembled as I dropped the magazine onto my night stand. The words, right there in bold, unflinching black and white, stared up at me with menaces. _Ladies Bits_ had always been a source of amusement to me. From my early teens, I had scoffed at the fantastical romances and endless columns of bizarre beauty advice. But now the paper glowed in the corner of my eye, like an invitation, or a challenge. There were no real particulars and no names had been mentioned. Yet I was certain that it was Him.

It seemed like something of a lark at first, a distraction from my dull daily routine. I enjoyed powdering my face and arranging my hair for the photographer. Indeed, Mother was most impressed by the sudden interest in my personal appearance, thinking, perhaps, that all hope was not yet lost.

Writing the letter was another piece of fun. Adopting the most simpering tones, I penned a jumble of vapid sentences: _Miss is most eager to see the country. Miss is intrigued by the sound of the honourable gentleman and, beg pardon, would be most eager to make his acquaintance. Miss has all the necessary accomplishments to make a first rate wife and mother._ [Candle wax has spilt here, obscuring the rest of the paragraph].

Even when I had Grimes take the letter down to the post, I believe that I still thought of the whole affair as a harmless enough jest. It was only when I stood before the grand entrance of Bluebeard Mansion, clutching my humble carpet bag so tight that my knuckles turned white, that I began to realise that my little bit of amusement had become all too real. And it was only when I was led in the darkness by a faceless manservant to the tiny bedchamber that I now occupy, with just this miserable stump of a candle for company, that I realised how difficult it would be to ever escape.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letter from Mrs Amelia Colby to Miss Eveline Pitt of Bleasdale House, Blackheath, Nr. London.

Dear Miss Pitt,

My most sincere thanks for your charming letter of the nineteenth _instat_ , and for the delightful miniature that you enclosed along with it. My Lord would be most pleased to make your acquaintance and would like to extend an invitation for you to visit him two weeks from now at his country seat. My Lord requests that you pack only your most becoming gowns.

Please confirm your attendance by return of post. Further particulars are enclosed, as is your train ticket. A carriage will meet you at Blethen station.

In eager anticipation of your reply,

your Faithful Servant,

Mrs A. Colby (housekeeper)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The diary of Miss Eveline Pitt continued.

Tuesday, early morning

I should not have told Mother that I was going away with Ginny. I should not have invented the painting trip to Paris, setting Mama’s heart all a-flutter at the prospect of a French young man. And I most certainly should not have used the last of Father's money to acquire this hideous and uncomfortable heap of a dress, no matter how much the dressmaker insisted that purple ruches are simply _the height of fashion_.

There was I, fancying myself a girl detective, a one woman wonder who would take the literary world by storm with tales of her heroic exploits. Now here I am, cowering in this tiny cell of room and waiting for a servant to escort me to breakfast. I cannot help but imagine that when he arrives he will escort me to my doom.

Tuesday, later

The oddest of days. Baines (for that, I discovered, is the name of the faceless manservant) eventually arrived to take me to breakfast just as the sun was beginning to creep towards the top of the sky. He led me through a veritable labyrinth of dank, narrow corridors, each more foreboding than the last. I tried to avert my eyes as we passed by the stuffed prize-fish and mounted stags. It was all too reminiscent of the sketches in Father's nature books, books that that I ─ though I shudder to think of it now ─ consumed all too eagerly when, as a pallid young girl desperate for adventure, I hid in his study late at night. We even came face-to-face with an enormous stuffed bear, posed ready to pounce. In my terror I fancied that I heard the beast growl, before realising, with some shame, that it was only the sound of my own empty stomach.

Breakfast, or more accurately lunch, was again the strangest of affairs. Baines seated me at the head of a massive mahogany table but laid only one place. There would have been enough food to feed an army, were it an army of the vilest and most savage cannibals. Trays of meats were placed before me, the flesh so raw that I fancied I could still smell the blood. Indeed, I scarcely recognised half the foodstuffs presented for my delectation, let alone did I dare touch them. I saw, however, that I must help myself, as the mysterious manservant had disappeared, yet again, into the shadows. Nibbling a little at a piece of fruit was about all my stomach could bear.

All in all, Baines seems to view me as a curious specimen, an attraction at his own private zoological gardens. And as for my supposed groom, I am almost beginning to question the very existence of My Lord! His man has made no mention of him, and the mysterious Mrs A.C. is yet to surface. Nonetheless, the spectre of the missing Lord Bluebeard haunts every inch of his palace, his spirit very much alive where his body is absent. The man must have an ego the size of his mansion, for there are at least a dozen massive portraits of him scattered about the place. They all depict the same unpleasant features, in any manner of heroic poses. I suspect that he is a man of delusions.

My solitude continued as the day evaporated in stony solitude. Save from a needle, a sewing frame, and an offensively weak cup of tea, I was offered no further refreshment or stimulation. Bereft of my notebook, the only saving grace was the opportunity to explore my surroundings in the daylight. The place is such a maze that I have no idea whether I am facing north, south, east, or west. And I have never in my life encountered so many locked doors! I cannot help but imagine that a skeleton lies beyond each one. In fact, I am almost certain that, as I tip-toed past one of the larger bolted doors, I heard the helpless cries of Bluebeard's latest lost bride.

As I try, in vain, to sleep, I fancy that I hear her cries again ─ the faintest of howls cutting through the dead night. Then perhaps it is only my empty stomach playing tricks again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note in an unfamiliar hand, assumed to have been pushed under the door of Miss Eveline Pitt's bedchamber.

My dear,

If you wish to know the truth of this place, there is only one path to be trodden. It is the road of the bold-hearted, the righteous and the true. You must voyage to the bent corridor at the northern end of the east wing. Come only at the dead of night, when there is no chance that you may be observed. The red door that you will find there will open upon the scene of your redemption, or else that of your destruction.

B.B.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The diary of Miss Eveline Pitt, continued.

Wednesday, very late ─ or perhaps it is now the early hours of Thursday morning?

My heart is beating so hard it feels like ten thousand military drummers in my ear. My whole body is still pulsating from the fright, the very shock of the thing. My breath is dreadfully ragged. And yet, still, I must write, for what detective worth the name does not keep a faithful record of her investigations? 

Of course it was very foolish of me to throw caution to the wind in a house so full of danger. But who, I ask, could resist the temptation to hunt for the red door after receiving such a missive? 

When, earlier this evening, I found Bluebeard's note tucked underneath the rug beside my bedroom door, I was not afraid. 'The brute shall not frighten me off,' I thought defiantly, my old stubbornness returning. 'The man has toyed with me enough, leaving me to suffer under the beady eye of Baines all day long. I shall have the truth out of him if it is the death of me.'

I had no heavenly idea what he meant by the 'bent corridor', but I had gained enough of a sense of my environment to guess at which wing might be the east. So, with the black night sky looming overhead, barefoot and armed only with my stingy candle stump, I set out on my quest.

Now that I had familiarised myself somewhat with the house's gruesome passageways, it was not too difficult to find my way back to the dining hall. The route from there was far more tricky. I headed towards what I assumed was the East Wing, but the corridors there ran as straight as any I'd encountered. It was only when I chanced upon a narrow entry-way, partially obscured by a large bookcase, that I understood what Bluebeard meant about the crooked corridor. As I entered the passage I saw that it looped back on itself in the most strange and impossible manner, leading me deeper and deeper into the heart of the house, onto territory that I was yet to explore.

Up ahead, I could see the red door at the very end of the corridor, right at the pulsing heart of the house. It seems, now, that it could have been no other way. It was only when I stood before the scarlet portal that I realised that I had been holding my breath and walking as if across a bed full of sharp nails. It was the complete and utter silence of the scene that made the sudden thud all the more alarming, the flickering of the lights all the more terrifying.

I must have ran. I scarcely remember a thing that happened in my terror, but I must have ran and ran until I found myself back in this cramped bedchamber. This is, I note with tears pricking at the backs of my eyes, the closest thing I have to a home in this dreadful house of horrors.

Thursday, early morning

Now that I have calmed myself, I begin to suspect foul play, some grotesque trick on the part of Bluebeard and his cronies in order to prevent me from discovering the truth. But what sort of Lady Detective would I be if I fell at the first hurdle in this little narrative I have spun?

I will try again tonight. If I do not return I have tried to leave my papers in an orderly enough fashion. There is still the vain hope that they might one day be discovered, that the truth might one day be known.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt from a transcript of testimony delivered by Mr Brodrick Pitt at the inquest investigating the disappearance of his sister, Miss Eveline Pitt (assumed deceased).

_Now, Mr Pitt, can you tell us how you came by the diaries and other documents that have just been read into the court record?_

I can indeed. Two years ago my sister left England with her good friend, a spinster named Ginny Weaver, in order to embark upon a painting tour of France. My sister was always a queer sort of girl, strong-willed you might say, so my mother (now deceased) allowed her to go unaccompanied. We of course anticipated some letter or postcard with news of her travels, but none was forthcoming. Assuming that she was simply too occupied to make the time to write home, we were not too worried at first. But when Eveline did not return to London at the scheduled time, we became somewhat alarmed. 

At first we suspected a simple delay in transportation, and we looked for Eveline daily. When a week went by and she did not return, Mother, naturally, called upon Mrs Weaver to ask after her daughter. Imagine our astonishment when we learned that no trip had taken place, that Miss Weaver had sat contentedly in her Greenwich home the entire time my sister was missing!

We were furious and demanded that Miss Weaver told us what was going on. Eventually, she confessed the truth. Spurred on by some nonsense that she had read in one of her detective novels, my sister had decided to go in pursuit of the infamous Lord Bluebeard. As my dear late Mother always insisted, this, alas, is the danger of reading for girls!

Eveline's exploits at the Bluebeard Mansion have already been recounted in the documents we have just heard. I can only add that, at Mother's request, I ventured to the great house myself in an attempt to track down the vile demon who resided there, and to learn more of my sister's fate. Alas, I arrived too late. I found the house abandoned, with no one in the village any the wiser as to what had happened to the infamous Lord and his household staff.

I discovered the diaries and papers that the court has just heard tied in a neat bundle atop the dining table. A rottting pig's head sat beside them.

_Thank you Mr Pitt. You may step down._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: Document discovered washed up on the southern coast of Greece. The handwriting appears to belong to Miss Eveline Pitt.

I cannot tell you the life that I have led, nor the things that I have seen. I pen this document only in the hope that those connected to me might learn what happened when, so many years ago, I disappeared from that dreadful country house in England. I came to hear that the case made the papers in dear old London town and that my humble diaries had caused something of a sensation. Indeed, I was most amused to learn that there had been a ferociously fought series of letters in the _Times_ debating the authenticity of my journal, and that a gothic romance based on my tale had even made it into the pages of the _Ladies' Bits_! So, perhaps, the public might, decades or centuries from now, be curious to learn my ultimate fate.

Looking back with the wisdom of years, it may have been foolish for me to rush headlong into the thing. But I was young(ish) then and all too headstrong. In any case, in the end it was my impetuousness that saved my life, or at least my soul.

Sometimes I can still scarce believe what I saw when I first opened the door that led into the inner world of Bluebeard Mansion. Even now, through my failing eyes, I can envision the council of women who were gathered beyond the red door. They appear to me in my dreams as an hallucination or a mirage. So many women, and of so many different sorts ─ old, young, plump, slender, tall, short. Some lay about on sofas, some were sprawled across the floor, others still stood and stared curiously up at me.

I was so distracted by the ladies that it took me a moment to see the skeleton. It was a beast of a thing posed rather indelicately in the centre of the room, an apple between his teeth.

All of the women smiled up at me, but only one of them came forward. 'I see that you have noticed Lord Bluebeard,' she said, gesturing towards the monstrous skeleton. 'I'm Amy Colby. I believe you may have received one or two letters from myself. I'm ashamed to say that I sometimes go by the initials "B.B." and have one of my friends write out my messages when a mischievous mood overtakes me.' The elderly woman, still ever so handsome, threw me something of a knowing smile. 'Meet Jacqueline, the third Lady Bluebeard, and Helena, the seventh,' she continued, gesturing towards the women by her side. 'And perhaps you are already acquainted with Cynthia-Jane, one of the newer members of our little clan?'

It was all a trick, of course. Nothing more than a simple test.

Long ago, back when Bluebeard first began to terrorise his young brides, the women in his household rose up in revolt, led by Amy Colby, his fearless housekeeper. Bluebeard, large but very stupid, was easily dispensed with. But the ladies saw no reason to stop there. With the whole of the Bluebeard mansion at their disposal, they decided to make the most of the situation and to build a little community of women for themselves. The women, they all agreed, must possess a certain strength of character, and the cobwebbed corridors of the great house presented the perfect trial. Many a nervous young thing went scurrying back home in terror, her tail between her legs. But the women who made it beyond the red door were invited to stay, forever. Good-humoured Baines they kept on as a kind of curiosity and as an extra deterrent for the brides. When the occasion absolutely demanded it, the imaginative Mrs Colby had even been known to dress the former butler in the robes of Lord Bluebeard himself, wheeling the manservant briefly through town to make a show for the villagers. For his own part, Baines appeared to mind his role in the charade not one jot, and Amy left him a generous sum when we eventually had to leave him behind.

Of course we could not stay tucked away in the heart of the mansion for the rest of our days. It was only a matter of time before some desperate relative, not to be fobbed off with a notice of death, came knocking and found us out. Indeed, it had already been decided, long before my arrival, that I would be the final addition to the happy little family of thirteen. When we made the move to our present home, it was Amy who suggested that I leave my diaries and papers in a most prominent spot, and it was she who encouraged me to add a few little flourishes to the narrative for dramatic effect.

When it comes to our little community, we have all sworn a solemn oath that we shall never reveal our present whereabouts. We live too happily and too well to have our bliss interrupted by another man like Bluebeard. I can only say that I have been beyond contented and very well-loved. Now, in the twilight of my life, I cast my little message in a bottle upon the water and surrender its fate to the turning of the tides.


End file.
